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We seek to provide the best services for our qualifying clients for free. Normally, a package for labor doula support including prenatal visits, continuous labor support, and postpartum visits would cost between $450-$1200.
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Be An Angel - Help Several Families get the birthing education and experience they deserve and desire
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Choose the Amount you Wish To Give and Help our Organization Maintain its Operations
Become a sustaining member for only $5, $10 or $20 x month. |
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Thank you for supporting the Joy In Birthing Foundation. We are a non-profit organization dedicated to providing birth and postpartum doula services to mothers in the greater Los Angeles area, regardless of their ability to pay.
We serve low income women associated with the fostering care system, women in homeless shelters, half-way homes, and teens. These women are disproportionately impacted by a real crisis in the maternal heath unspoken crises of the United States. Inconsistent care likely contributes to racial disparities in maternal health outcomes often resulting unnecessary interventions, discrimination and higher rates of complications in vaginal deliveries. The rates for complication for cesarean births increases five-folds.
Since 1990, the maternal mortality ratio in the U.S. has more than doubled. We now rank 64th in the world, with 28 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. American women are also suffering severe maternal morbidity at higher rates: more than 60,000 women a year experience a life-threatening condition during childbirth.
In 2012, Hodnett et al. published an updated Cochrane review on the use of continuous support for women during childbirth. They pooled the results of 22 trials that included more than 15,000 women. These women were randomized to either receive continuous, one-on-one support during labor or “usual care.” The quality of the studies was good.
Continuous support was provided either by a member of the hospital staff, such as a midwife or nurse (9 studies), women who were not part of the woman’s social network and not part of hospital staff (doula 5 studies; childbirth educators 1 study, retired nurses 1 study), or a companion of the woman’s social network such as a female relative or the woman’s partner (6 studies). In 11 studies, the husband/partner was not allowed to be present at birth, and so continuous support was compared to no support at all. In all the other studies, the husband or partner was allowed to be present in addition to the person providing continuous labor support.
Overall, women who received continuous support were more likely to have spontaneous vaginal births and less likely to have any pain medication, epidurals, negative feelings about childbirth, vacuum or forceps-assisted births, and C-sections. In addition, their labors were shorter by about 40 minutes and their babies were less likely to have low Apgar scores at birth.
Read the Evidence
Since 1990, the maternal mortality ratio in the U.S. has more than doubled. We now rank 64th in the world, with 28 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. American women are also suffering severe maternal morbidity at higher rates: more than 60,000 women a year experience a life-threatening condition during childbirth.
In 2012, Hodnett et al. published an updated Cochrane review on the use of continuous support for women during childbirth. They pooled the results of 22 trials that included more than 15,000 women. These women were randomized to either receive continuous, one-on-one support during labor or “usual care.” The quality of the studies was good.
Continuous support was provided either by a member of the hospital staff, such as a midwife or nurse (9 studies), women who were not part of the woman’s social network and not part of hospital staff (doula 5 studies; childbirth educators 1 study, retired nurses 1 study), or a companion of the woman’s social network such as a female relative or the woman’s partner (6 studies). In 11 studies, the husband/partner was not allowed to be present at birth, and so continuous support was compared to no support at all. In all the other studies, the husband or partner was allowed to be present in addition to the person providing continuous labor support.
Overall, women who received continuous support were more likely to have spontaneous vaginal births and less likely to have any pain medication, epidurals, negative feelings about childbirth, vacuum or forceps-assisted births, and C-sections. In addition, their labors were shorter by about 40 minutes and their babies were less likely to have low Apgar scores at birth.
Read the Evidence